Posted on 03/03/2004 4:09:19 AM PST by fdsa2
Defence says prosecution has weak case
The trial surrounding last year's leaks of confidential Foreign Ministry papers on Iraq began in Helsinki on Wednesday morning. Former Prime Minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki (Centre) and former Presidential aide Martti Manninen face charges related to the leaking of information from the documents by Manninen to Jäätteenmäki during last spring's Parliamentary election campaign. Jäätteenmäki, who was then the chairwoman of the opposition Centre Party, used the information to attack the government of Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen (SDP).
According to the indictment, Jäätteenmäki incited Manninen to violate official secrets when she deliberately and repeatedly asked him to provide her with a document on the meeting between Prime Minister Lipponen and US President George W. Bush. Jäätteenmäki's lawyer Aarno Arvela reiterated on Tuesday that Jäätteenmäki denies the charges. Jäätteenmäki maintains that Manninen was the one who had taken the initiative. Arvela also said that the defence would question whether or not the allegations would actually constitute inciting or abetting in the violation of official secrets.
Manninen's lawyer Matti Wuori plans to focus on the validity of the evidence. Wuori maintains that Manninen did not give Jäätteenmäki any original documents. Instead, he submitted compilations based on "broad documentary material, including press reviews". After sending the compilations to Jäättenmäki, Manninen removed them from his computer, and Wuori says that they no longer exist. Wuori says that the prosecutor has had to call in a police expert to examine the hard disc on Manninen's computer. "The prosecution lacks evidence of the decisive part: what exactly was the confidential information that was given", Wuori said.
Wuori also plans to point out that Manninen did not give Jäätteenmäki any information that she would not have been entitled to see as opposition leader. He plans to call Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) to testify on the matter. Wuori further feels that the information given by Manninen was not confidential information; he plans to introduce as evidence a newspaper column written by Lipponen, in which he wrote that there was nothing that needed to be kept secret in his discussions with Bush. Wuori argues that Manninen did not know that the information that he sent to Jäätteenmäki would be used in the way that it was.
The Supreme Administrative Court ruled on Tuesday that three Foreign Ministry documents linked with the Iraq case should be kept confidential because they are linked with political negotiations with another country. A television journalist had petitioned for access to the papers. Wuori does not see the decision as a blow to his case, because Manninen did not submit original documents to Jäätteenmäki. Wuori says that the defence strategies of Manninen and Jäätteenmäki back each other up. However, Jäätteenmäki's defence has called as a witness Secretary of State Risto Volanen, whose story may prove harmful to Manninen. Volanen said last summer that Manninen had threatened to accuse Jäätteenmäki of incitement if she named Manninen as the person who leaked the information.
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